The Karnataka government on Wednesday filed its reply in the Supreme Court in the Veerappan case defending its decision to withdraw cases against 30 associates of the forest brigand in order to seek release of hostage Kannada film icon Rajkumar. Detailing the steps taken by it in cooperation with the Tamil Nadu government to nab Veerappan, the state government said that most of the accused were in jail since 1994 and in the normal course were entitled to bail. The government said it had taken a conscious decision to drop charges in view of its apprehension that if anything happened to the superstar there might be linguistic unrest.
The state said that the public prosecutor made an application for withdrawal of charges against the associates of the sandalwood smuggler and elephant poacher after taking into account the possible fall out of a combination of eventualities and the trial court independently took the decision to drop the charges after weighing the legalities.
The affidavit made an effort to dispel the impression of the court that no tangible effort was made in the last eight to nine years by the government to arrest Veerappan, who took Rajkumar as hostage on July 31.

Bureau Report